5 ms·

Checks are still big in the US, no?

by ssss11 5y ago

zinekeller 5y ago
Quite. They're dwindling, but at a slower pace than other countries.
- orf 5y ago
  In the UK they haven’t been completely phased out, but I haven’t seen a cheque or a cheque book in the last 22 years. In 2019 only 51k paper cheques where used. That is to say, other countries have already done it. 1. https://newseventsinsights.wearepay.uk/media/e1mdcljg/pay-uk-annual-summary-payment-statistics-2019.pdf https://newseventsinsights.wearepay.uk/media/e1mdcljg/pay-uk...
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    The only times I've seen cheques in recent years are birthday presents from grandparents. I think they're still quite widely used by older people.
  - tialaramex 5y ago
    You have, quite understandably, misunderstood that document. What's actually going on there are still about 250k paper cheques but that document was generated during the period when they were consolidating from an older system which actually cared about physical pieces of paper to ICS, an "Image Clearing System" ie banks scan the cheque and work with just image data. The American victims in the HN linked story already have image clearing, that doesn't fix anything except it saves the banks a small amount of money. The document shows volumes dwindling at two legacy paper cheque handling organisations C&CCC and BBCCL because those firms literally no longer exist today, the document was produced by Pay UK, their successor in practice, which replaced their paper processes with images. But end users still write and receive physical cheques, it's just that banks don't want to spend money on physically moving cheques. The actual volume of cheques stayed at around 250 000 per year, average value of a cheque about £1500 (so "Buy a used car" money, but not "Buy groceries" money or "Buy a house" money) and total value about £400M (or £400 billion if the obvious typographical error in the column headings is true...). I expect data for 2020 will be very different, due to the pandemic, but that document is for 2018 and 2019. Cheques are still gradually going away in the UK, I didn't write a cheque in the past five years and most of my accounts have no way to draw cheques against them. But that document isn't the evidence you thought it was.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
grenoire 5y ago
Some of our clients still send us cheques (even though we explicitly note on our invoices that we don't take them) while the banks in the Netherlands won't even process them anymore... It's rough.
beerandt 5y ago
I find it easier to write/recieve a check and use it with my banks mobile deposit than any of the reinvented wheels. I don't understand why we can mobile deposit checks, but using a bank app generated and signed jpg check isn't an option. Email, txt, or even print-mail-deposit. Recipients could do the same. Mobile deposit app opens the file instead of taking a picture, automatically stamp your endorsement, submit, done. Or print and deposit. It could have been so simple.
TheFreim 5y ago
I used to live in a small(ish) town, roughly 6,000 population, and checks were still used regularly. Basically if you had check from a local bank you could use it the same way you'd use a card.

Checks are still big in the US, no?

by ssss11 5y ago

Checks are still big in the US, no?

zinekeller 5y ago

Quite. They're dwindling, but at a slower pace than other countries.

orf 5y ago
In the UK they haven’t been completely phased out, but I haven’t seen a cheque or a cheque book in the last 22 years. In 2019 only 51k paper cheques where used. That is to say, other countries have already done it. 1. https://newseventsinsights.wearepay.uk/media/e1mdcljg/pay-uk-annual-summary-payment-statistics-2019.pdf https://newseventsinsights.wearepay.uk/media/e1mdcljg/pay-uk...
- nicoburns 5y ago
  The only times I've seen cheques in recent years are birthday presents from grandparents. I think they're still quite widely used by older people.
- tialaramex 5y ago
  You have, quite understandably, misunderstood that document. What's actually going on there are still about 250k paper cheques but that document was generated during the period when they were consolidating from an older system which actually cared about physical pieces of paper to ICS, an "Image Clearing System" ie banks scan the cheque and work with just image data. The American victims in the HN linked story already have image clearing, that doesn't fix anything except it saves the banks a small amount of money. The document shows volumes dwindling at two legacy paper cheque handling organisations C&CCC and BBCCL because those firms literally no longer exist today, the document was produced by Pay UK, their successor in practice, which replaced their paper processes with images. But end users still write and receive physical cheques, it's just that banks don't want to spend money on physically moving cheques. The actual volume of cheques stayed at around 250 000 per year, average value of a cheque about £1500 (so "Buy a used car" money, but not "Buy groceries" money or "Buy a house" money) and total value about £400M (or £400 billion if the obvious typographical error in the column headings is true...). I expect data for 2020 will be very different, due to the pandemic, but that document is for 2018 and 2019. Cheques are still gradually going away in the UK, I didn't write a cheque in the past five years and most of my accounts have no way to draw cheques against them. But that document isn't the evidence you thought it was.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

grenoire 5y ago

Some of our clients still send us cheques (even though we explicitly note on our invoices that we don't take them) while the banks in the Netherlands won't even process them anymore... It's rough.

beerandt 5y ago

I find it easier to write/recieve a check and use it with my banks mobile deposit than any of the reinvented wheels. I don't understand why we can mobile deposit checks, but using a bank app generated and signed jpg check isn't an option. Email, txt, or even print-mail-deposit. Recipients could do the same. Mobile deposit app opens the file instead of taking a picture, automatically stamp your endorsement, submit, done. Or print and deposit. It could have been so simple.

TheFreim 5y ago

I used to live in a small(ish) town, roughly 6,000 population, and checks were still used regularly. Basically if you had check from a local bank you could use it the same way you'd use a card.